


something in the autumn that is native to your blood

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-16
Updated: 2012-09-16
Packaged: 2017-11-14 09:28:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It begins with the sound of bells.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	something in the autumn that is native to your blood

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Есть в осени что-то родное](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7226581) by [Russian_Fic_Store](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Russian_Fic_Store/pseuds/Russian_Fic_Store)



> For Philomytha's trope prompt request, "telepathy".

It begins with the sound of bells. 

There is an old church on the wrong side of the caravanserai district that gets graffiti sprayed, steam-cleaned off and sprayed on again different every few days. _GREEKIES GO HOME_ , and even less subtle, _FUCK OFF BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM_. The priest is a harassed-looking man who pulls his hood down over his face and ducks into the door every morning as furtive as a mouse. In the first frost days of autumn, even the scent is furtive: incense, laced with gunpowder and woodsmoke, drifting in to Simon's window in tentative wreaths spreading over the city. 

Aral comes in during the late afternoon, shifting a viewer from hand to hand. Rather than his usual brisk stride, he seems unsure, hesitant. He puts things down and picks them back up, then puts them down again. "Simon…"

"Yes, my lord Regent?" Simon asks, after some minutes of this.

"Nothing." Aral picks up his viewer and strides back out.

*

"What is that?" Aral asks, suddenly.

He's so quiet that Simon almost, but not quite, didn't hear him come in. The man is upsetting, Simon thinks wryly; he's a good soldier but he would make a terrible spy. Even when doing his best to dim his own presence, he makes currents in the air and changes the way the world is. 

"What?" Simon asks, gently putting down the report he was trying to read. His office in Vorkisgan House is as beautiful as many of the rooms in the oldest part of the house are: it has ancient beams and open space and a window with ivy crawling around the ledge. It's no wonder he's been spending more time here lately.

"The bells." Aral waves a hand. "You opened the window to listen to them."

Simon raises his eyebrows and doesn't ask how he knew that. "The Greek church in the caravanserai," he says, carefully.

Aral still looks expectant. Simon sighs and says, with reluctance: "There was one like it. In the town where I grew up."

"Ah, I understand," Aral says, which is news to Simon, who doesn't understand this at all. Aral goes out while Simon is still standing to talk to him, leaving something in the air between them, a half-finished conversation hanging like a distant scent.

*

"It's courageous," Aral says a few days later. "To ring the bells, I mean. When otherwise they feel that they have to hide."

Simon has been sleeping badly for a few days and doesn't feel quite up to this conversation. They're on the street for once, boots ringing on the hard surface of the pavement. The layers of ImpSec protection are unfolding around them but there's a palpable sense of freedom, on this crisp freezing day under an intensely blue and lambent sky.

"Yes," he says, cautious, listening to the sound of the bells. His chip tries to find patterns in them, the average time between each peal. He ignores it. It's a perfect day, still, clear, with air that carries sound great distances and a brisk snap that invigorates him somehow beneath his skin.

"It's my favourite sort of weather," Aral says comfortably. "It reminds me of training exercises and hikes into the mountains, before everything got quite so complicated."

"Yes, sir," says Simon, and they go on walking.

*

Simon is at the window, this time, when Aral comes in. He's leaning out, hands on the ledge. Below, an Armsman admits someone to the house, following all the security procedures to the letter, Simon is pleased to note; opposite, a bird takes flight from an old split tree.

"It's you, isn't it," Aral says, after he's been standing there for some time. Without waiting for an answer, he comes in and perches on the edge of Simon's desk. "For a while I thought it was just strange dreams. Then I thought I might be going mad, but then I thought Cordelia would have noticed. The Greek church where you grew up - it was painted white, wasn't it? It had a blue door, and it was a set a little distance from the town, above it. You could see all the way down into the valley."

"Yes," says Simon slowly. "On a clear day you could see forever."

"Why are you dreaming about it, do you think?" Aral makes a gesture towards the window. "The sound of the bells?"

"In part." Simon nods. "Otherwise… I suppose it's the change of the season that makes me think about other times. Another autumn, another winter."

Aral nods. 

"And the chip - it doesn't like it, when I dream about memories I've had since before. It rejects them as processing inputs, so I don't sleep very well. And speaking of the chip - I was told right at the beginning that it might do this. I sincerely apologise, sir."

Aral laughs a little. "It's not exactly your fault, Simon."

"But I do know it's a security risk," Simon goes on, earnestly. "Now that I know it's possible, that I might broadcast in my sleep…"

Aral makes an abrupt silencing gesture. "Simon, no one dreams secret codes and classified information. Some might believe that of you, but I never will."

Simon nods. "Thank you, sir." And, after a pause: "What now?"

"Now you go back to work" - Aral gets off Simon's desk - "and I go back to mine. Don't worry," he adds, as Simon steps away, "I'll open the windows and let it all in."

Simon is not sure if he means the bells, the memories, the air mint-fresh with promise. When he turns Aral has gone and Simon stands there breathing, breathing, leaning out of the window under an endless sky.


End file.
